Mad Catz paid not to make Guitar Hero

By Robert Purchese Published 11 January, 2010

Was intended for PS2 and Xbox.

Mad Catz has revealed the reason Guitar Hero began solely on PS2.

The peripheral maker had been commissioned to make a sister Xbox version, but paid $300,000 to abandon the deal after Konami's legal team came sniffing.

"Guitar Hero was a game that we were actually involved with early on and pulled out because of a lawsuit with Konami," Mad Catz boss Darren Richardson told Kotaku.

"We were doing the Xbox SKU and that's why there was only a PlayStation 2 launch. That's why. We were in there and we pulled out as a result of [the lawsuit] and [Red Octane and Harmonix] went forward and it turned out to be a success, a huge success."

"Everyone else made hundreds of millions and we paid money to not be a part of it. It was brilliant," he added. "I come up with these strokes of genius from time to time. That was my best."

Mad Catz makes a name for itself crafting arcade-style fight sticks for Capcom's fighting games, such as Street Fighter IV and Capcom vs Tatsunoko. The company also unveiled a raft of products at January's CES 2010 last week - details of which can be found on the Mad Catz website.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

You may also like...

Comments (9) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • McBradders #1 2 years ago

    How odd. Well, they got on the new wave of peripheral madness in the best way imaginable, so its not all bad. I have a lot of love for the TE Stick.

  • Toothball #2 2 years ago

    An amusing tale in all. The first Guitar Hero was one of the reasons I invested in a US PS2, as at the time it didn't look like it was going to be big enough to make it to Europe. I'm curious as to what I'd have done if the Xbox version was available then.

  • neonxaos #3 2 years ago

    I have pounded on my TE stick for months now, and it shows no sign of weakness whatsoever. My respect for MadCatz has risen considerably. The SE sticks have proven to be less sturdy, but they're still better than Hori's EX2 sticks. I have two Horis, and both are pretty tired of life after a couple of years. Still, they're not bad choices for the price, the Madcatz sticks are just better.

    Felling a bit sorry for the guys after reading this story, but that's business for ya...
    Edited by 2 at 11/01/10 @ 10:23

  • jellyhead #4 2 years ago

    Hah, good to see he has a sense of humour about it at least :)

  • erp #5 2 years ago

    Absolutely, kudos to his good humour!

  • butler` #6 2 years ago

    haha, legend.

    i feel for him

  • gjgjg #7 2 years ago

    shame, MK versions would have been better I bet ...

  • Murton #8 2 years ago

    A lot of guys would be a little bitter over this, I guess MadKatz' massive success in the peripheral market has taken a lot of the sting out of this loss.

    Speaking of MadKatz peripherals, I'd love to see some of those Rockband instruments make their way over to the PS3, especially the full size precision bass with the split strum bar, that thing looks and feels great, just a shame they only made them for 360.

  • monkfishjoe #9 2 years ago

    Fair play to the guy for being honest and self-effacing about the whole thing. Red Octane guitars are alright (well, the GH3 one had a few issues). Much better than the Rock Band periphs...I thought, as a package, they kind of let the product down.